Movies that are the comic benchmarks of their era, from silent to stand-up

It's said that all comedy is local, since it depends on a knowledge of the conventions that the perpetrators are sending up and putting down. That may be so, but a glance at five kinds of comedy spanning 60 years proves that the truly funny is universal. A silent star can still make us laugh and gasp at his exertions. Teen foibles from the '80s can touch us today. All of which raises the creepy threat of a Rob Schneider retrospective at some film museum in 2055.

THE BRAT PACK COLLECTION The movie that elicited the term Brat Pack for a...